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Going to the 'Edge of Heaven' with Fatih Akin

Akin's latest film is a fierce, generous melodrama, the second of a trilogy about émigré culture patterned after Fassbinder's trilogy of movies about post-World War II German history that began with The Marriage of Maria Braun.

Attitude with substance. That's Newcity. We offer up a fresh take on culture and city flavored by a lifelong love of the metropolis we cover. With a combination of in-depth reporting, vivid profiles and sassy commentary on the issues that...

Over the course of two features, one documentary and a handful of shorts, Akin has devoted himself to depicting the lives of Turks within present-day Germany, and the complicated relationship between the two countries.

For most filmgoers, the network narrative has become a crashing bore. But the Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin's latest film reinvigorates this screenwriting ploy, breathing new life into something I'd written off for dead.

More by Ray Pride

Surveying a couple hundred year-end lists by movie reviewers and entertainment writers can be a soul-squishing thing, particularly if you read the reasoning and rationales, the dithers, the doubts, the demurrals, the dishing and dashing to and fro, recurring, recurring.

More by Chicago Newcity

Surveying a couple hundred year-end lists by movie reviewers and entertainment writers can be a soul-squishing thing, particularly if you read the reasoning and rationales, the dithers, the doubts, the demurrals, the dishing and dashing to and fro, recurring, recurring.

A Christmas Tale is the "home for the holidays" primal scene as primal scream: from the first moments, as we're introduced to the characters, we realize they can be chilly and abrupt, capable of pettiness and outright cruelty. And that's just the set-up.